First Date
by servantofclio
Summary: After surviving the Omega-4 Relay, Shepard decides to ask Garrus on a proper date. (Just a short bit of Shakarian fluff.)
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: This is the same Shepard as Life, Letter by Letter, Reckoning, and Divided Loyalties._

* * *

Garrus was hard at work in the main battery. Calibrating.

Not the guns, this time. (And he couldn't make out why the notion of calibration seemed to be becoming a running joke to the humans.) The _Normandy_ needed a lot of repairs since they'd hit the Collector Base and returned through the Omega-Four relay, and every system repair or upgrade required a certain amount of finagling to fit it in with the rest of the ship's systems. Tali had routed data to his workstation so he could help the rest of the techs and engineers with the job. He had a vague sense that it must be nearing the end of his shift, but he hadn't been paying close attention to the time.

The door slid open behind him. "Hey, Garrus."

"Shepard." He turned around at once, automatically smiling at her. "What brings you down here?"

One eyebrow went up as she grinned back, crossing her arms and leaning one shoulder back against the door. "How about the fact that my favorite turian should have been off-shift two hours ago?"

"Oh—ah—really?" Sure enough, the chrono on his visor informed him of the time he'd been ignoring. "I guess I got preoccupied."

Shepard shook her head slightly, but kept smiling. "You know, I can come up with a lot more interesting things to keep you occupied, if you want." Her voice dropped into a lower, more intimate tone.

Garrus rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. His mandibles twitched. It was still… disconcerting, the whole thing. He hadn't had any cause to doubt their friendship—even after she came back from the dead—but it had come as something of a shock to realize that she was serious when she offered a little mutual stress release. The prospect had stunned him and thrilled him at the same time, forced him to admit to an attraction he hadn't named, and it had gone... far better than he'd had any right to expect, considering.

He wasn't sure which fact surprised him more now: that they'd all passed through the Omega-Four relay, taken on the Collectors, and come back alive, or that Shepard seemed to think whatever they were doing wasn't a one-time thing. The realization that something _had_ gone right left him reeling a little, not sure which way was up.

Yet there Shepard was, leaning against the wall, giving him that sly look that made his chest feel warm and tight. She still had a few faded bruises from their fight with the Collectors, but she looked otherwise recovered, and the sight of her there, relaxed and smiling, gave him a strangely peaceful feeling.

He'd been silent too long, he realized. "What—ah, what did you have in mind?"

Shepard pushed herself away from the wall, taking a few steps closer. "Quite a few things, actually," she said in the same husky tones. Then her voice returned to its normal register. "But for now, get yourself into civvies and meet me at the airlock. We're going out."

He couldn't quite suppress a twitch at the thought of going out into Nos Astra out of armor. It might not be Omega, but still... "Out?"

"Out," she repeated firmly. "I know there's a lot to do, but I've hardly seen you in the last week. There's no need for you to work double shifts. We're taking some time off the ship, Garrus."

It didn't take him long to change; it wasn't as if he had a lot of civvies to choose from. He went to the airlock in the same clothes he'd worn up to her quarters that first time. After a moment's thought, he took his seldom-used sidearm, too. He hated the feeling of being completely unarmed in public.

Shepard was waiting alone at the airlock, arms crossed, wearing... a dress. _That_ dress, the only one he'd ever seen her wear. Black, hitting just above the knee, and showing off her shoulders and arms. Garrus stopped in his tracks, blinking at the unexpected expanse of skin. "Ah... where's everyone else?"

"Oh." Shepard smiled at him and hit the controls. "Who said anything about everyone else? It's just you and me tonight. I hope that's all right."

She wasn't quite looking at him as she spoke, and there was something odd in her tone. Garrus blinked again. Was it possible that... Shepard was nervous? "Yeah," he said. "Of course."

Her smile relaxed and widened. "Good. I asked around—okay, I asked EDI to check restaurant reviews—and found a place that serves both levo and dextro cuisine. Supposed to be good. I thought... we could check it out?"

"Sure." As the airlock finished its cycle, and they stepped out, he said, "So, dinner, and... did you have anything else in mind?"

Shepard shrugged. "I don't know. We can see what we're in the mood for. I'm sure there's plenty to do in Nos Astra, if we want to see a show or something."

"So you're telling me that... this is a date?"

"Well... yeah." She sent him a sidelong grin. "Unless... do turians date?"

"Oh, no," he said. "We're paired up by citizen rank when we reach age thirty and expected to reproduce for the Hierarchy. Before that it's just casual sex. No long-term commitments allowed."

Garrus counted it a minor victory that he managed to keep his expression under control when Shepard shot him the most bewildered look he'd seen from her in a long time, eyebrows up and mouth half-open. Then her eyes narrowed. "You're messing with me."

He couldn't contain it any more and burst out laughing. "Yeah, I am."

She tried to scowl, but her lips were twitching. "Smartass turian. I ought to give you a piece of my mind."

"Like you've ever been shy about sharing your opinion before." Tentatively, he held out a hand.

"Of course turians date, Shepard."

"Hm." She let the smile come and put her hand in his. "Good to know."

"I guess that would make this our first date, then."

"Unless you want to count all those times we killed something together, yeah."

"Hm. That would be a lot of dates. We'd better call this one the first. Easier to keep track of."

"First it is, but..." She shifted closer, close enough that her shoulder brushed against his arm. "I hope, not the last."

His hand tightened around hers. Her grip should have felt odd, and for a moment, he was conscious of the alienness of it, her fingers too slim and numerous. But her hand was warm and she squeezed back, and the sense of oddness faded into a contentment that was exactly right, as they walked out into Nos Astra together.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: The previous chapter originally stood alone, but I subsequently got a prompt for a "romantic kiss" featuring this pair, so I wrote this as the sequel._

* * *

Shepard overheard a snatch of conversation as she made her way through the crew deck:

"It's so romantic!" Kelly. Gushing.

"Hm, I don't know. Neither of them is what I'd call romantic." Tali, sounding skeptical.

"You really don't think so? The Spectre and the vigilante? Two wounded souls finding comfort in each other in a war-torn galaxy…"

Out of sight, Shepard wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes.

Kasumi chuckled. "Even I think you're exaggerating, Kelly."

"What she said," said Tali. "It's… I don't know, I guess Shepard could manage 'romantic' if she put her mind to it, but Garrus? I don't see it."

Shepard shrugged and moved on. They weren't exactly wrong, she supposed. What did it even mean to be romantic? She'd never really been a hearts-and-flowers kind of girl. It had been a point of friction between her and an ex-girlfriend. She shook her head. Maybe it was a symptom, here, that she was asking her best friend—lover—boyfriend (could she call him her boyfriend if they'd slept together only a couple of times, and had never had a conversation about whether they were long-term?) on a date that she hadn't actually told him was a date. (Did it matter if she was doing it partly so he didn't work himself to death?)

Up her quarters, she changed into the black dress Kasumi had given her, because it was the only dress in her closet. She put on a little more makeup than usual.

The thing was, they'd taken a victory, if not the war, and she wanted to celebrate by doing something relatively… normal. Didn't have to be some grand romance.

It was nice, though. Garrus even held her hand on the way to the restaurant, and EDI hadn't led them astray. The restaurant was genteel, softly lit, with murmuring conversation and quiet asari music. It didn't serve human cuisine, but she didn't have a problem with the asari dishes, which were excellent. Garrus claimed the turian-style dishes were also good, and she was relatively sure he wasn't covering up for her benefit.

"What do you want to do now?" Garrus asked as they waited for the check.

Shepard hesitated. Part of her wanted to continue this off-ship idyll. It was nice to have some time away from the rest of the crew, much as she loved them.

Another part of her wanted to get him back to her cabin and out of that suit he was wearing.

"I'm not sure," she said. "What do you want to do?"

He shrugged. "Whatever you want, Shepard."

"What if I want to do what you want?"

He cocked his head, giving her a look. "Now there's an intriguing notion."

Her face heated up as she thought back on what she'd said. "Well?" she said, trying to fight down the blush. "There's no chain of command here. It's just the two of us, it's not a mission, no one we know around to judge us…"

He rested one elbow on the table and leaned forward. "You sure about that? Seemed to be quite a few people you knew in Nos Astra."

She took one look around the room, a little wildly, to see if she could spot a familiar face. Garrus took advantage of her distraction to capture her hand, large fingers closing over hers. She turned back, startled, as he lifted her hand and dropped a kiss on the back of it, his mouth-plates barely closing over the thin skin, his eyes absolutely intent on hers.

"Oh," she breathed, aware that her cheeks were burning, and two thoughts floated through her mind:

first, romance didn't have to be about the trappings; sometimes it was just about the right person at the right time.

Second, that Tali had wildly underestimated their turian friend's capacity for romance.

A third thought occurred to her, and her eyes narrowed. "Just what kind of research have you been doing?"

His mandibles parted in a grin. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

She took that in for a second. "How about we had back to my cabin?"

His smile widened. "I thought you'd never ask."


	3. Chapter 3

I had thought this fic was done before, but then a couple more ideas wanted to come out. I'm confident that it's actually done at this point.

* * *

The thing was, everything was still so new. Shepard was still getting used to... this. Whatever this was. The giddy sense that the partnership they'd forged was becoming something more, new layers unfolding. And Nos Astra wasn't the kind of place she wanted to walk around oblivious, drunk on another person. So they walked back to the dock hand in hand, as they'd left; and she paused at a quiet corner to pull Garrus close for a kiss. Still getting used to the _how_ of that, and still marveling at how he tasted, how he felt, how their heights matched up together. She'd seldom dated anyone that much taller than herself, and somehow she felt herself fixating on that, the unaccustomed angle, her head tilted back instead of down or sideways, even though everything _else_ was new, too.

She smiled at him when they broke the kiss and wondered if he was entranced by the newness of it all, too. He might be; he had something of a look in his eyes that she didn't think she'd seen before when he returned the smile, mandibles flaring out and blue eyes locked on hers. It _was_ Nos Astra, though, so they only passed a few moments in smiling at each other before continuing on.

She felt herself practically humming with anticipation as they reached the dock and walked through the CIC. (Decorously, given the skeleton crew present.) She barely waited for the elevator doors to close behind them before turning to him, but Garrus caught her hand first, planting another kiss on the back, and then working his way up her bared arm. Not quite like a human kiss, maybe—somewhere between a kiss and a nip, almost—but the peculiarity of it was more than made up for by the fact that it was his breath puffing warm against her skin, his mouth and tongue flicking its way up. By the time he got to her shoulder, her breath was coming faster and she could feel her heart pounding in her ears.

"Garrus," she said. Her voice came out husky.

"Mm?"

When he lifted his head she kissed him fiercely, pressing her whole body against him, taking in every detail: the soft coarse fabric of his clothes, the warmth and solidity beneath, the strength of his arms going around her.

The elevator beeped. Once, then twice, insistently. Shepard broke off, a little dazed. The doors had opened. They half-stumbled out.

"So," said Garrus, returning his attention to the side of her neck, "still interested in doing what I want?"

It took her a moment to remember and key in the access code for her quarters. "Depends on what you want."

"I want," he murmured, "to go slow. Touch all of you."

"Oh," she said, a certain expectant throb rising in her body.

Their first time had been charged with the nervousness of whether anything would work at all, everything a bit awkward. Their second time had been about affirming they were both alive, ginger and careful around their recent wounds.

This time was different. This time was about her back against the fishtank while Garrus nibbled at her collarbone, lifting herself up to press her thigh against his hip while his fingers traveled up from knee to hip, sliding under her skirt. It was about his curiosity, when they finally got the dress off, about the never-before-worn lacy underwear she'd tried out this evening. It was about the plain truth that yes, he meant to touch and feel and _taste_ _everything_ until every inch of her skin seemed to be on fire and she gave delirious thanks that neither of them had allergies.

"_Garrus_," she said—fine, pleaded—at length. "_Finish the job_."

He chuckled, an absolutely maddening vibration. "But you make such interesting noises."

She surged up at that, and a moment's grappling reversed their positions, pressing _him_ into the mattress with her hands on his shoulders. She leaned her hips against his and his eyes fluttered shut, with a rough, low-pitched noise. "Like that?" she inquired, grinning.

Once upon a time, she'd assumed, like a lot of humans, that turians didn't have much feeling: all armored shell, tough, insensitive plates. Not true, she knew that by now, though she still took great pleasure in finding the _most_ sensitive spots, in playing with his waist and the soft skin of his throat, before they finally came together, breathless and clutching each other, surging together until they both came apart.

Afterward, she turned on her side to look at him. Eyes closed, breathing softly, but not asleep, she didn't think. Still getting used to the sight of him without armor and the extra bulk it added to his frame. Still fascinated by the subtle shift of long ridges on his chest as he breathed. Naked Garrus, in her bed: a thought that still gave her an extravagant kind of glee. She'd be tempted to just keep him here if she didn't need him in the field, too.

"So this," he said, without opening his eyes, "is a dating thing."

She felt a little prickle of worry, but said, "Right."

"Not a blowing-off-steam thing."

"Well, that, too."

He opened his eyes, started to say something, seemed to change his mind, and then did say, "Just getting things clear."

There was something lingering in his eyes that she thought she recognized, a shadow of insecurity, maybe. She thought perhaps that first thing he'd been about to say was along the lines of _why_ or possibly _why me_, and she couldn't take it. "Good," she said, curling up against his chest and slinging an arm over him. "As long as you're clear that you're not getting rid of me easily."

She could feel the puff of laughter that followed as he wrapped his arms around her, but there was a moment of hesitation before he said, in a voice thick with... something, "Good. I—well, I wouldn't want to."

There were things unsaid, but for now—for now the room was still and quiet, and she had him here, warm and solid and holding onto her, and she wanted nothing more for the moment.


End file.
